Can You Decode This Metar Without Assistance

Sinistar

Sinistar

En-Route
Joined
Sep 9, 2016
Messages
3,734
Display Name
Display name:
Brad
Can you decode this one without looking it up?

KMKT 161956Z AUTO 29009KT 10SM CLR M16/M20 A3065 RMK AO2 SNE16 SLP414 P0000 T11611200 FZRANO

...I had to look it up. The SNE16 is still a bit confusing? Why even state P0000?? And for sake of all that is holy and good, why are some negative's 'M' and some are not???? FRZRANO.....:eek:

ps. Mankato Flight School students should probably be exempt :)
 
MKT airport, on the 16th at 1956 Z, automatic routine report. wind is 290 @ 9, vis 10sm, clear skies, temp is -16, altimeter 30.65" hg, remarks, A02 = automated with precip sensor. SNE16, snow ended at 16 past the hour in this case 1916z. sea level pressure is 1041.4mbtrace precipitation, temperature is -16.1c dew point is -20.0. Freezing rain information not available.

So the SNE is snow ended at minutes past the hour, you can even snow began at minutes passed the hour or both. Imagine it started snowing at 1901Z and stopped at 1916Z you'd see SNB01SNE16.

Why state the trace precipitation, good question, I'm not sure why they report it when its only trace, but for me, it lets me know the intensity, and in turn can help somewhat have an idea of what the runway conditions might be when you land.

Why is the exact temp prefixed with a 1 instead of an M is a great question, if you find out let me know! haha

The FRZRANO is important because while we don't see a $ to let us know the station needs mx, clearly its having a hard time determining the precipitation that is or was falling, so it would be wise to look around at other weather sources to determine the precipitation conditions on the field. Because if it is snow, sleet, freezing rain, etc it could make a difference in dispatch ability

thats just my two cents
 
I bow to your skills if you can decode that whole thing without looking it up!!!!
 
Sinistar said:
I bow to your skills if you can decode that whole thing without looking it up!!!!
Click to expand...

instructing for a few years with students always asking those little details helped me learn it all! still can't seem to shake it away!
 
FZRANO means the sensor is inoperative (NO not operative) for measuring freezing rain. Local airport had that today.
 
Sinistar said:
I bow to your skills if you can decode that whole thing without looking it up!!!!
Click to expand...
Don't worry, you will get the hang of it. It ain't rocket science!
Well ... maybe except for the government using "M" for "-". And also using "1" for the same minus for the same variable (temperature). But using "-" for a totally different purpose. It's not about availability of symbols. It is about the stupidity of a government organization. *sigh*
Otherwise, most of the METAR is standard "abbreviology" that they teach in every ground school and explain on dozens of webpages. Not hard to learn the abbreviations.
 
Sinistar said:
So what exactly then is Unknown Precipitation ???

I figured by now the Wx guys knew every type of precip?
Click to expand...

Normally shown on automated weather, but 9/10 times is freezing rain, also known as NOOOPE!
 
Sinistar said:
Can you decode this one without looking it up?

KMKT 161956Z AUTO 29009KT 10SM CLR M16/M20 A3065 RMK AO2 SNE16 SLP414 P0000 T11611200 FZRANO
Click to expand...

OK, here goes, without looking:

Mankato, MN (I think), 16th at 1956 UTC, Automated reading, winds from 290 at 9 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, sky clear, temp -16ºC, dewpoint -20ºC, altimeter 30.65, AWOS-2, snow ended at 1916Z, sea level pressure 1414 millibars, (P0000????), temp -16.1ºC, dewpoint -20.0ºC, freezing rain to the north.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
OK, here goes, without looking:

Mankato, MN (I think), 16th at 1956 UTC, Automated reading, winds from 290 at 9 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, sky clear, temp -16ºC, dewpoint -20ºC, altimeter 30.65, AWOS-2, snow ended at 1916Z, sea level pressure 1414 millibars, (P0000????), temp -16.1ºC, dewpoint -20.0ºC, freezing rain to the north.
Click to expand...
Thanks for trying without looking!!! You did better than me, that revised temp/dewpoint really threw me off due to the leading '1' meaning minus. I had now idea what the P0000. The freezing rain part (prefix) seemed familiar, but like yourself I didn't know that FRZRANO meant the freezing rain information is not available.
 
As a student, I’ve been looking at the METARS for LaGuardia for the last few weeks, and the only code that was new to me was the NO in FZRANO.

Just watch the METARS for an airport with changeable weather, don’t let ForeFlight, etc translate them (ForeFlight, as it turns out, doesn’t translate the entire code anyway), and the codes will be pretty easy to read pretty quickly.
 
Last edited:
I said 20 years ago, and I say today, that we have the technology to do away with that kind of nonsense. There's simply no reason to put out something where every item has to be decrypted, leaving room for a lot of mistakes to be made by a lot of people.
 
The fact that ForeFlight fails to fully decode METARS suggests that it might be less simple than you think.

After a month of reading them daily, I find them pretty easy to decode.
 
I’m an airline pilot. I can’t decode ****.


:)
 
Rory said:
I did hope that you were joking. If so, sorry that I missed it.
Click to expand...

It’s cool - I joke all the time - I sometimes forget that it might not be so obvious with the written word. :)
 
I do wonder whether “translating” METARS is so easy.

The METARS issued by New York area airports during the recent winter storm were fairly nuanced (i.e, they included a lot of codes that you won’t see day to day) and were supplemented by a lot of ATC oral updates, themselves based in part on input from pilots. Of course, this was all happening before and while all the NY area airports wound up being closed down.

ForeFlight’s “translation” didn’t come close to reflecting what the METARS said.

P.S. As a student pilot, I live 1.5 miles from LaGuardia, I have a ForeFlight subscription and an Icom handheld aviation radio that I put on my open window sill, and I listened the morning that this played out. It was an education.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top